We throw away vast amounts of stuff - stuff which could get a new lease of life after a simple repair. Lots of people have forgotten that they can repair things themselves or they no longer know how. Repair Cafés are free meeting places where people come together to repair things together. In a local Repair Café, you’ll find tools and materials to help you make any repairs you need on clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, appliances, toys, etc. You'll also find expert volunteers, with repair skills in all kinds of fields. Visitors bring their broken items from home and in the Repair Café, they start making their repairs with the specialists. It’s an ongoing learning process.
Repair Cafés help people in the community whose skills may not always be valued to get involved again. It helps neighbours from different backgrounds connect with each other and allows valuable practical knowledge to be shared. Repairing things at a Repair Cafe means things are being used for longer and don’t have to be thrown away. This reduces the volume of raw materials and energy needed to make new products.
We throw away vast amounts of stuff - stuff which could get a new lease of life after a simple repair. Lots of people have forgotten that they can repair things themselves or they no longer know how. Repair Cafés are free meeting places where people come together to repair things together. In a local Repair Café, you’ll find tools and materials to help you make any repairs you need on clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, appliances, toys, etc. You'll also find expert volunteers, with repair skills in all kinds of fields. Visitors bring their broken items from home and in the Repair Café, they start making their repairs with the specialists. It’s an ongoing learning process.
Repair Cafés help people in the community whose skills may not always be valued to get involved again. It helps neighbours from different backgrounds connect with each other and allows valuable practical knowledge to be shared. Repairing things at a Repair Cafe means things are being used for longer and don’t have to be thrown away. This reduces the volume of raw materials and energy needed to make new products.
Sustainable Enniscorthy's second repair café was held last Saturday in Templeshannon Community & Childcare Centre and we had a great turn out with about 30 items brought for repair - from clocks to clothing and various different electrical items such as vacuum cleaners, a DVD player, garden strimmer, radios and heaters.
A massive thanks to our volunteer repairers - we couldn't do this without you, so a big thank you Ray, Sean, Joan, Geraldine, Paul and Jack for your support. And to everyone that brought something to be repaired - avoiding waste and keeping products in the economy for longer - you are contributing to a circular economy!
Follow us on Facebook to keep updated on the work of Sustainable Enniscorthy and more details on this repair café event.
Sustainable Enniscorthy hosted the town’s inaugural Repair Café in the Presentation Arts Centre on Saturday 17th June between 10.30am and 1.30pm. The event was attended by over 50 people, with 34 repairs carried out by the dozen repairers that volunteered their expertise on the day.
Promotion has started and registration opened for a second Repair Café on Saturday 2nd December 2023, and planning is underway for a third repair café (evening event) in March 2024.
There have been many positive impacts from the project, including an increase in the members of the Repair Café project group, increased engagement on Sustainable Enniscorthy social media platforms, and new connections made with repairers and other community groups involved in running repair cafés around the country. We supported a series of ‘Sew Saturdays’ events for teenagers on clothing repairs/sewing skills which we are hoping to extend due to the positive feedback, and looking at the potential for running adult sewing skills classes in the New Year.
Registration is now open on eventbrite for our next repair café on 2nd December. Please register whether you have are coming to get something repaired, or volunteering your repair skills, or just coming for a look. By registering you are helping us to plan for numbers attending and the types of items coming for repair. Look forward to seeing you there!
Update on my ottoman! Got an end of a chipboard sheet from the hardware shop (free!), and my 15yo sawed it down to size. The Men's Shed guys suggested I buy stronger wheels, which I did, and they nailed the board & screwed in the wheels (4 screws for each). I was seriously considering throwing the ottoman out because the wheels kept falling off.
Too much information on one ottoman? Probably, but here's one happy customer.😁